Procrastinators on Stage (Chris Kendall/crabstickz fanfic) *unedited*

Part 18- I Don't Like Feeling Conflicted

“Because we all know that Mia practically drooled over Dan before she’d even met him for the first time,” Carrie teased Mia. “She was such a little stalker!”

Mia was bright red in the face right now, and was trying to disguise this fact by stuffing a garlic dough ball into her mouth. “So was Lucy,” she mumbled through her food.

“Yeah, but I’m not going out with my idol now, am I?” Lucy mocked Mia.

I rolled my eyes and smirked at the girls as they all giggled at LuckyQuartz. “Which idol would you have gone out with, Lucy?” I said innocently.

Everyone seemed to turn unanimously to face Lucy, who was gaping at me like a landed fish, her eyes wide behind her glasses. “I don’t…” she stuttered, gradually turning a pink colour.

“I’d guess Jack Howard,” Lynn mumbled through her drink. “Lucy and he made a collab video the other month and there was so much eye fucking it was unreal.”

“Oh, really?” I smirked. I looked to Lucy with a raised eyebrow.

Lucy’s eyelids fluttered as if she were trying to blink away dust from her eye before she spoke again. “Just don’t say anything about it, okay?”

“Aww, you have a crush on Jack! That’s adorable!” Poppy cooed.

“I’ll have to set the two of you up,” Carrie added enthusiastically. “But what about you, Jamie? You and Lucy left the room at a crux moment in our conversation and we never got to ask you about your crushes.”

“She’s right,” Lucy added. She stared at me for a moment, as if she was trying to portray something with her eyes. Maybe she was trying to remind me of our little deal or something, just by giving me a death glare. “There’s our glorious love triangle to talk of, after all.”

“Oh gods, not this again,” Mia groaned. She tilted her head to the side and grimaced into her hair.

“No, I think it should be a ‘yes’ to this again,” Lucy beamed. She shuffled forward and rested her chin in her hands, completely forgetting about the half ingested pizza bone that she’d left in the pizza box.

“How about starting with how Chris has had this huge crush on you ever since you met this time last year, Mia? But now his heart is torn between Jamie and you?” Poppy gushed.

It was my turn to start at this. I could almost feel my ears prick up as I took another bite of my mozzarella pizza. I almost choked. “What?!” I managed to cough after Carrie had liberally pounded me between the shoulder blades. Poppy even got up to go and pour me a glass of water from the tap to help me.

“It’s that ‘there’s a thin line between love and hate’ thing,” Lucy pointed out to me. “You and Chris absolutely hated each other for the first few days that you knew each other, but over the past day or two, you’re so sweet around each other!”

“I can only think of the two of you curled up sleeping together on the sofa when we came to your house on Monday,” Carrie chuckled, her eyes going glassy as she leant her hand on her cheek and smiled dimly at the ceiling. “You were just so cute I wanted to smush your little faces together!”

Poppy handed me the glass of water as she reappeared from the kitchen units. “You and Chris may have not known each other for long, but we’re all shipping you like crazy. You might be able to help Chris get over Mia.”

I accepted the glass from her and took a long drink in the hope of relieving the sand papery sores that my choking had caused in my throat. I then frowned into the glass as my mind processed what Poppy had said.